NOVEL WEB Chapter 4: A Nostrum in the dark
My life is one of incompetence, I’ll never accomplish anything.
Thinking this I wondered where I was, it was so dark that I couldn’t make out anything but the rotten smell hanging in the air.
I reached out a hand searching the darkness and found….a wall? Standing, I stretched out my hand and began to proceed along the wall.
It makes sense, there’s no way I would be able to stay alive somewhere I can’t see anything. I continued forward slowly, one foot after the other, but no matter how far I walk there is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is only that stench wafting through the darkness, even so I continue forward because I know if I stop now, I’ll never start again.
“Uuu….. uuueugheeuk” I sobbed and gagged, gagged and sobbed, but still I kept walking.
I wanted to I see something, anything, in the darkness my status screen was all I could see. It was my only salvation.
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Condition: foreign world syndrome*1
A sickness affecting those who longed for a foreign world.
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“So I’m sick? What is the meaning of this.”
I mean, I certainly held out hope for a parallel world, that I could start over from scratch. There wasn’t a day that passed where I didn’t imagine leaving my old world but here, that’s treated like some kind of sickness. I’m not normal. It’s as if this entire world is ridiculing me.
“Goddess”
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Inherent skill: Goddess’s divine protection.
An ability bestowed by the mercy of the goddess.
It is possible to choose one item or skill to receive when the targets life reaches zero.
ーーーーーーーーー
“It looks like I can use this.”
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Magic: Heal
MP cost: 3
Basic healing magic.
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I think I’ve realized why healers are called the weakest. It’s exactly like Saeki said, how am I supposed to fight like this?
Who did you come here to heal?
I remembered what Saeki said to me.
What should I do from now on?
Why am I still walking?
I want to kill. I want to kill them now, I want them to taste this pain, feel the agony I feel.
※
Light.
Suddenly I could see light. For a moment I thought I hit my head. Suddenly a red light appeared, I had to check my head to make sure I wasn’t bleeding into my eyes.
A torch, it’s a torch.
“Better than nothing.”
If this was an RPG, I would have had one of these to begin with. Looking around, the room seemed to be decently large, I picked up the torch and checked behind me. I almost couldn’t believe how narrow the pathway was or how low the ceiling had been. Of course, I had been bumping my head a fair bit.
Suddenly I was afraid, I didn’t know why, but for some reason I was scared. I blamed the torch, blamed the fact that I was suddenly able to see, able to understand my current situation. I’m the only one that has to see this, those guys are probably enjoying a feast around now. In the darkness I saw their faces; Saeki, his was the clearest. No, the first, will be that woman.
“I’ll kill them.”
My voice echoed, coming back to me. The sound of it made me laugh. What do you want to kill? A human? You can’t kill anything like a human.
I stood still for a while, looking over the room, searching for the source of that stench. I leaned against the wall, the wheels in my head still not spinning. I could hear a low sound coming from somewhere.
It felt as though I touched something, as if my back hit a lever when I leaned against the wall. I was scared, I’d caused something to move. The sound stopped, and the wall disappeared from behind me.
‘Trap door’
Not exactly uncommon in RPGs.
※
I wonder how much time had passed, not that it matters. After several passageways I finally arrived in a room.
“A treasure chest huh.”
There were three treasure chests in front of me. Well, I wasn’t sure if they were treasure chests but I had hope.
“Wait, if I open this, it’s going to have teeth isn’t it.”
These are definitely mimics. I just know things like this.
Should I open them, should I shut up and move on? If I continue forward I may regret it, but to not open them……
Mimics are often called noob-killers. It usually kills players who do not yet know what mimics actually are. Opening a mimic is the last thing you’ll ever do, right before you’re devoured.
And so, after worrying extensively about whether or not I was going to open a mimic, I opened the rightmost box. There was nothing. Honestly, even water would have been an improvement to my current situation, that’s just how hopeless it is. On to the next one, I moved to open the next chest.
In the next chest was a small glass vial filled with an ominous red-black liquid.
“Creepy~”
The problem wasn’t the color, it’s just something was telling me that it was dangerous.
“Drink it!”
“What was that?!”
I heard a voice, it’s strange to be hearing a voice here but i quickly became excited.
“Who’s there!? Where are you?”
While I probably should have been scared hearing a voice coming from out of the darkness, for a moment, it seemed as though I wasn’t alone.
“Drink it… come on do it.”
The voice came again, I heard it clearly this time. Honestly I was happy just hearing it, I preferred it to the silence. Even though I was now pretty sure the voice was coming from the thing in my hand.
“Don’t you want power? If you want power, then drink me! Drink me!”
“I don’t need power, send me back to my world!”
There was no answer.
Even when I tried talking to it again it stayed quiet. So I sat there staring at the bottle. Although the room was dark, it appeared black
I like dark places. I didn’t ever think that they were scary, in fact I often thought them to be relaxing.
But at this moment, I was scared.
“So, should I drink this?…..”
If I start steadily raising my level wouldn’t I eventually surpass those guys? My status would make them seem like ants. There’s got to be some way to deal damage as a healer right? If I don’t find some way to can I even continue to live like this? If I continue forward without a way to fight, I will die, there’s no mistake there.
“It can’t be helped.”
How long will I keep saying ‘its scary’, it’s about time I make a decision. Do I drink this like the voice said, or do I die empty and alone?
“I already tried to throw my life away once.”
I’ve made up my mind.
“Hey, I don’t know who you are, but I’ll drink this so, do me a favor here?”
I opened the lid and downed the contents in one go.
“Fufufufu! You did it!”
As that laughter rang out, my body was racked with severe pain.
“Ah-fuck! What the hell was that!”
My body hit the ground.
“It’s over, my life is over. God damn it!”
Whatever, I give up already. I have no regrets. My will to live I gone. I’ve done enough.
[TN: *1 I left this the same as it was in the manga for those of you that came from reading it because I already made the title something…less directly translated, with no machine translation feel like I felt it had before, and not making a lot of sense into something….IDK more I guess?
Lastly, sorry the chapter was a bit late guys, got injured etc. Fun times right. Anyway it looks like foxaholic is moving to a new site.]